The contradictions and confusions in the government’s planning agenda are grabbing headlines. Uncertainty around Neighbourhood Plans and the intended laissez-faire approach to planning are also causing local tensions. We need an open debate on these important issues; for people across the political divide to argue their case, be listened to and to be understood. 

First the headlines: “Neighbourhood planning powers given and taken away” by Peter Hetherington. Hetherington writes “delivering power to parishes and neighbourhoods – is colliding with proposals from the chancellor, George Osborne, to promote growth through bypassing the planning system”. He also refers to a report by the Town and Country Planning Association that “more than 200,000 proposed new homes have been “lost” since the minister scrapped a regional planning system and associated housing targets. And this when house completions, at 100,000 or below annually, are the lowest since 1923″ and a third of what are needed.

Or “This localism bill will sacrifice our countryside to market forces. The government’s ‘sustainable’ new planning policy invites corruption and will sink us in urban sprawl” by Simon Jenkins. Jenkins, the chair of the National Trust, is alarmed that “a national planning policy framework replaces all previous regulation and encourages building wherever the market takes it, crucially in the two-thirds of rural England outside national parks, green belts and areas of outstanding natural beauty. Farms, forests, hills, valleys, estuaries and coasts will be at the mercy of a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’.” (That means most of Uttlesford district!) “The ‘default response’ to any planning application is to be ‘yes'”, he writes.

Jenkins fingers the local government secretary, Eric Pickles, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, for pushing business and national economic policy over conservation “at every turn”. He claims that “planning, once proudly independent, is now effectively an arm of Cable’s department. It is told that it ‘must not act as an impediment to growth’. This stands on its head the purpose of planning, which is to guard the public interest irrespective of market forces. Its whole point is to be an impediment.” Neighbourhood plans are to be guided by parish councils and ‘business forums’. “The latter can be any group of 21 people who ‘live or work’ locally.”

“Worse follows. Half the councils in England have no strategy plans at all.” (That includes Uttlesford.) “In this case, planning approval is to be assumed. It (approval) is also to be assumed ‘wherever the plan is silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date’, a stunning Orwellian phrase.”

So I feel that my warnings about not rushing into producing a Neighbourhood Plan are being borne out by these commentators. But it’s worse than that. Political commitments that councils would be put back in charge, once regional assemblies were abolished, seem worse than valueless. Before we had some certainty. Now we seem to be on a track to anarchy.

Or last Wednesday’s editorial in The Guardian: “Planning: Concrete proposals”. 

The Guardian’s editorial brings a sense of reality and responsibility about the need for more homes. “One reason why this is such an expensive country to live in is the restricted supply of property. There is nothing progressive, in a nation with a growing population, about choking off the supply of new homes, which only further enriches people who already own property.

“Not all building is bad and not all green land (not the same as greenbelt) is sacrosanct. What matters is the process by which development is decided and where it takes place. On this the new proposals are deficient.

“But as it stands the proposed planning framework is far too feeble when it comes to specifying how local plans will be drawn up and enforced. It also supports a category of neighbourhood plan which could allow development on the say-so of a group of self-appointed local people of questionable provenance. To some ears, this sounds like a builders’ charter. ‘Neighbourhoods will have the power to promote more development than is set out in the strategic policies of the local plan,’ say the proposals.” But not less; and that’s provided you have a current local plan to contain strategic policies, which Uttlesford District Council does not. 

Or this very thoughtful article by Matthew Taylor in last Sunday’s Observer: “If we can organize the Olympics, why can’t we get the basics right?” Taylor makes some philosophical points about how democracy is failing us all. “But the voter isn’t always right. The opinions people express when first asked a question can change dramatically when they are furnished with a few basic facts.” That’s why I have strongly criticised Uttlesford over the past four years; for failing on several occasions to explain to people during consultations about why more homes are needed. It’s all been about how many? About where should they be built? But never about why – apart from dishonestly blaming the previous government and the deceased regional assembly of councils for coming up with targets. 

Taylor concludes “we need a combination of new forms of public engagement and innovative policy-making. Citizens’ juries can help build a consensus that action is necessary and that there are no pain- or controversy-free options. New forms of local taxation and community investment can help to create incentives to act more in the long-term interest.

“The impetus will have to come from within our political system and at the moment that is severely in doubt. We are still not winning the game of long-term leadership.”

Which brings us back to local tensions. I may have misread local enthusiasm for producing a Neighbourhood Plan as being a desire for “substantial” extra local development. Maybe this enthusiasm came from understandable confusion over what these plans are really meant to achieve. I must own up to continued bewilderment on my part. Growing alarm at the coalition’s new planning proposals were visible only this afternoon at a meeting of the local strategic partnership, Uttlesford Futures, and from all sides and none of the political spectrum.

We do need more homes in Stansted, but so do other nearby places in Uttlesford that haven’t grown anywhere near so much in recent years. We need a strong local say but we certainly don’t want planning anarchy driven solely by market forces and some misguided planning policy that always puts economy first and environment and society last.

If this new planning regime is not fundamentally changed, our towns, countryside and our society will be damaged beyond what even bankers have managed to inflict on us so far.

MORE READING

“Neighbourhood planning powers given and taken away” by Peter Hetherington. ” 

“This localism bill will sacrifice our countryside to market forces. The government’s ‘sustainable’ new planning policy invites corruption and will sink us in urban sprawl” by Simon Jenkins.

Last Wednesday’s editorial in The Guardian: “Planning: Concrete proposals“.

Article on the Local Government Network blog by Kate Henderson: “Putting social justice at the heart of planning“.

Matthew Taylor in last Sunday’s Observer: “If we can organize the Olympics, why can’t we get the basics right?“